Autocollapse Spaces in sidebar

Ideas & Features
1

I regularly get overwhelmed by the number of open Spaces and views on the left in Fibery.
Therefore I prefer Spaces to have an automatic closing system when you open another Space.

But take note, only Spaces should close automatically. All folders and smart folders should remain open or closed as they were when the Spaces was closed. If sublevels also close when a Spaces closes, you would have to open to many levels before you get to the right view. That is not the intention. That will break the flow of getting to the right information fast.

I hope this makes sense.

@YvetteLans

2

I would want to be specify something like “No more than (two) Spaces open”, so when I open a third Space, the most recent one also stays open, but previously opened Spaces are closed.

I.e. “Maximum number of simultaneously open Spaces”

1 Like
3

Why 2 spaces open? As far as I know ‘close one when you open a new one’ is more or less ‘standard UX’ in menu views. Can image that my clients can’t understand it when two spaces are open :sweat_smile: Because the logic is then less obvious.

4

I often am bopping back and forth between a couple views in different Spaces.

5

Yes I’m doing the same myself but UX wise I don’t know if it’s wise. Do you know an application that keeps only 2 parts open?

6

Such automatic things may confuse people. What if you want to keep 2-3 spaces open to quickly get back after some side task? People are different and here the desired behavior can be different as well for various people. Maybe some personal setting in future can be added though.

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7

Agree, although I do think my clients can get ‘lost’ in spaces quite easily. Because all views are vertical and not horizontal, and therefor the left tree is pretty huge.

Can imagine that auto collapse is not the best option. But what about a ‘collapse / expand’ option?

Same for hierarchical list views. Would be great to have that option there as well. Because currently I sometimes need to open all entities in the list to find what I’m looking for (because we use ‘grouby same database relation’ quite often (for projects/sub projects and tasks/subtasks’) and then it’s auto collapsed)

The workspace that we are building for our customers is very big. A CRM space, PKM space, Project space, Automation & template space, Content Hub space, Product Development space, Dashboard space, Inbox space and a few smaller things.

Because we build the whole workspace for them, they are not that handy with Fibery.

So currently we have a lot of views to show all information we need. And with smart folders that tree can be very long. Which makes the left menu tree pretty overwhelming for users.

So It would be nice to somehow:

  • Find a solution to have less views because the views itself are more flexible and functional (the new table / group options will be a life saver :grinning:!)
  • Give the user the possibility to collapse / expand spaces and information in hierarchical views
  • Structure smart folders even more so they are not always so big (for example: a folder in a smart folder → I have multiple use cases where that’s really handy).
  • Find a solution to have less views in the tree. Horizontal views may be a good one. I really like that in report views and databases.

This is an old video of ClickUp which I made. To show how ‘clean’ the tree can look when horizontal views are added.

I do think Fibery’s UI is way better than ClickUp. And that Fibery is overall way better than ClickUp. But horizontal views like ClickUp can help the users a lot I think because the left menu will be a lot smaller and more well-organised.

8

Somewhere (long ago) I think I requested to have a button to collapse all Spaces in the Left Menu.
Perhaps that is a good solution?

9

I agree with this. I also think I don’t want full automatic auto-collapsing views. Sometimes I want to keep two spaces / locations open.

Maybe an option to “sticky” the Space to stay expanded, that can be assisted with a keyboard shortcut?

Like alt+click to toggle “stickyness” (and an indication of “stickyness” on the Space icon). Then I could control how many Spaces I want to keep open, and change it during a session or whenever I feel like it.

Like, the Spaces that I have “stickied”, they retain their expanded state even if I toggle other Spaces (and I can “unsticky” them, if I want), while all “non-sticky” Spaces that are expanded, gets auto-collapse if I expand another Space? Or some variation of that.

Agree there is probably better long-term solutions out there. But currently all important navigation (views/docs) are available in the sidebar, it feels like fundamentally changing to a “horizontal model” would be quite a thing.

On the flip side of the problem (it’s real) of navigating a large left sidebar, I think it’s kind of nice and simple, to know that I have all the important navigation entry points available in the sidebar, today.

But, I also think that as long as the main “topic” of a view is unchanged (maybe not enforced, but as a best practice), some more horizontal views (like tabbed interfaces) like they have in Notion and Clickup, or just quick filters, to avoid extra some views (like Jira) would be good.

I think is a good idea. I have often wanted that. If combined with a feature like sticky mode for Spaces, I would expect to collapse the sticky Spaces, but not remove the “stickyness” (if I open them again).

In any case, today my left sidebar gets cluttered like real quick and, then it’s “welcome to scroll hell”. More so if i have nested documents (like wiki pages). At the same time, nested wiki in left sidebar is kind of nice. I’m so conflicted :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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10

Same :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Because I also do agree with you!

I don’t want all horizontal views. But it would be great if we can somehow create a lot of views without the need to put them in the left tree. Like we already have within a linked database in an entity.

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So for example then I can switch between ‘show me a list, board, table, etc.’

That will solve a lot. And personally I think it’s more user friendly to then show those views on tabs / horizontal views because you can switch more easily. Like we already have in databases.

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Or in report views

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So…

  • Everything that is currently on the left, stays on the left (like smart folders, documents, etc. → because that works great!)
  • But then with the possibility to create different views and show them on the main screen.

Really hard to explain what’s in my head :rofl: But I think it would solve a lot!

3 Likes
11

Just found out that ClickUp’s newest design pretty sums up what I meant in the above post :sweat_smile:

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12

I do agree, the side panel can get a little hectic and take a moment to find the app and views within, especially when many are expanded.

Perhaps a simpler solution would be adding a “Filter” input field above the “Favorites” section that allows you to “Filter” (fuzzy search)" for Apps and Views in the sidebar based on the param value?

Example: To quickly find our “Team Projects” internal Fibery app, we could type in the “Filter” input field “Team” and any app name NOT containing “Team” would display?

Alternatively, any app name, view title, form title or smart/standard folder NOT containing the word “Team” will be hidden.

Adding keyboard shortcut for this would be great as well (e.g. Command + Shift + F) to immediately input your cursor into the “Filter” sidebar nav field.

I know this does not address the want for “auto-collapsing”, but at least may address “getting lost in spaces”.

Thoughts?

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